Friday, December 30, 2005

My wonderful year 2005

As seen in some blogs lately, people like to conclude their year and talk about what’s been up. Why should I be any different. It turns out there was more going on than I ever remembered. I traveled more than I remember, I met many new people who were worth meeting. There were many work-related things too but i will not talk about work, let’s just say that professionally it was a good year.

January: went to Canary Islands, managing to sneak away for my birthday; T left the country
February: MM back to picture
March: MM out of the picture
April: went to London and saw the Kylie Minogue show
May: went to St Petersburg, met A and A
June: went to Hiiumaa for Jaanipäev with one of the aforementioned A-s, met M
July: organized and took part in wonderful Summer University, which took me to Riga; met Nk and R and Y
August: went to company summer-days, met VK
September: went to Slovenia for vacation and spent the best time with Nk and R, met P
October: V and another A in the picture
November: bought Robbie Williams tickets; went to Egypt and did my first diving; met O
December: had a great Christmas time…and the stories of new-year’s party are yet to come….

Thursday, December 29, 2005

My 2 families

This Christmas I realized I have 2 families. First is my traditional “real” family – mum, dad, sister, brother – 5 altogether. I spent the long Christmas weekend with them. We’re all a bit crazy, we argue and we fight but we enjoy being together and we’re happy that we’re all doing ok. They need me around once in a while and I need them. So we celebrated the holidays, ate a lot and exchanged presents, I got 4:)

My second family are my friends. If I take the closest circle of them – A, N, S and PM – there’s also 5 of us altogether. Some of them see me far more often than my first family, since we do live in the same city and/or work or live together. So, with them we had the “family dinner” a couple of days ago in a Russian restaurant and we had the best time – we ate, drank vodka (discovering only later, when the bill arrived, that the vodka shots were all double), reminisced and just had fun. And, I got 4 presents:)

Gotta love my 2 families! They are the best!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Yep, it's holiday season...

Photo by: N

The holiday season is especially visible and discernible in our office. The picture above is only one of the examples of the (almost) hundreds of gifts sent this week.

I like the idea of thanking your clients and partners for a successful year together. We do it as well. But let’s face it, most of them send candies or even worse – cakes. We have 13 people working here…how much should we be able to eat?….within couple of days! And, in any case, at least go the extra mile and think of something a bit more original, not go to the store, buy a random cake and print your logo on a box.

So what do we do with all the cakes? This year we decided to give some of them (as we still do eat some by ourselves:) to where they’re more appreciated – to a shelter house. They happy, we happy:) This is also one of the precautions to take in order not to gain 5 kilos:)

Happy holidays!

Monday, December 19, 2005

Xmas peace?…not for me!


So I’m busy… I guess that is pretty obvious by now. Sometimes there’s so much to do that I wish somebody would take away some responsibilities and take care of them…for me.

Firstly, there’s work – no peaceful Christmas time for us, as for all the clients we have to sum up the year (which means 3-5 hour meetings) and already plan ahead the next year (which means a lot of work creating media strategies and helping them plan their budgets). Not so surprisingly, all of them want all of that at basically the same time…

Secondly, there’s still the ongoing project of finding a new home. I will not even go into this matter… too frustrating. When I finally have success…then I’ll let everybody know.

Thirdly….i have taken up moviemaking:) You know, actually filming and editing the material. Necessity brought on the need to learn it but it turns out to be really cool. I am, by all means, an amateur, so don’t come asking for wedding or birthday movies. I do it only for myself (or for some really-really good friends:)

Fourthly, let’s not forget that this time of year is densely filled with various parties and other kind of social gatherings, which need attending. Plus there’s the dating life which somehow still keeps itself active.

And last, but not least, there’s the enforced shopping activity – I love giving presents to my loved ones but finding them is a serious pain in the ass.

Monday, December 12, 2005

First times

There have been a few…Come to think of it, in everybody’s lives there’s almost innumerable quantity of first times. Everything that you do and have ever done…has once been a first-time experience…There are some first times, which are nice and pleasant, the others less so but in most of the cases, the ones that we choose to remember, are at least the interesting ones. Here’s my list of memorable first times… in no particular order, as the experiences in itself are pretty much incomparable …and may I add, the list is under construction…for I tend to “firsttime” more things on a daily basis:) (these are the ones I remembered now)

first kiss – I mean a real one, with a bit of tongue and touching and so on – that was nice. Surprisingly enough it came very naturally and was pleasant without any former practice. And it was special for me, for it was at a new year’s party.
first time standing up and walking on your own 2 feet, and I mean literally – this one I don’t remember of course, for I was about one year old, but I wish I would, because I’m sure it felt wonderful and liberating.
…"the first time" – by this I mean sex, naturally. That was nice too. I am not one of the people who can say that it was absolutely great and that it didn’t hurt a bit and so on, but I was old enough to know that it was just the beginning and from there on it was only going to get better.
first time having your heart broken – that sucked big time. This is something to wish for your worst enemy…if you can actually hate anybody that much. It hurt a lot. And even with all the reasoning and practical thinking, it felt like the end of the world and made me ponder about the meaning of life. And it took a lot of time to get over it…and deep down, I’m not sure if you ever can get over it 100%.
first time standing on your own 2 feet – figuratively speaking:). Moving away from my parents, to another city, getting a job, living in a crappy little place for a while – that was a bit scary. I knew I’d manage, and I did but there were a couple of nightmares and a bit of fear but it passed really fast.
first time feeling competent and confident at your job. I think I’ve always been pretty self-confident and it has helped me a lot, but at times I also hide the insecurities. I think it took around 2 years to actually have the feeling of justified confidence – to feel competent and know that you actually are. And that felt great.
first time losing somebody and facing the concept of mortality. I was in my teenage years when my grandparents started to pass away – one after the other with not so long intervals. They were old and it was a natural thing but it still hurt a lot. And it still does when I think of them and think of the good times and think of how much more I would have liked to talk to them and ask them about their lives – had I only known the right questions already back then…
first bad hangover – that was after my high school graduation party…I felt awfully bad, the colour of my face was grayish-green, I wanted to lay down and just die but instead I had to be sociable and talk to some relatives, plus go to shops to buy myself a present.... And because of that hangover and up to present day I have still not reconciled with martini, even though it was not the only guilty one.

I guess there are more I could write about but as these are the first ones that came to my mind, they must be the more important ones… now… what I am interested in, is… which are yours??

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Moments

Sometimes I get what I want. You know, I go after it and get it. At times it’s because I think I choose to want the things I believe I can get. And at times it means facing challenges. The difficulty of the challenge is very hard to predict, but the harder it is, the more rewarding it is to overcome it.

Now, getting what you want is like a double-edged sword. First the good feeling of success is satisfactory and you end up feeling content or even happy for a while. But then…you start wanting more. Suddenly one happy moment or day is not enough and you want the bliss to continue. I guess it applies in most of the situations – you get a raise and are happy with your new salary but soon you discover you start needing more money…or you think you’d be absolutely happy to have a week of holiday but when it’s over you want more…or you think you’d be the happiest person on planet to find your own flat but should you finally get it you probably also need a car…or like in the songs people say that they could die for only one night with somebody special…when in reality, they also want more.

Why is it that we want so much more all the time? I wish I had the ability to want less, to be able to cherish the moments of happiness…but I don’t think this is something that can be learned, is it?

“Considering the way the world is, one happy day is almost a miracle.” Coelho

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Egypt reloaded

The holiday week passed as an instant …but like an instant packed of emotions and energy and events…(what’s up with the E-words?:) The actual sequence of the events is probably not so important, so I just write about the most important keywords…(all the rest – the partying, lots of fun, the local shopping/bargaining etc – is a given).

The Sun

Coming from freezing cold Estonia and being greeted by the warm Egyptian sun feels absolutely rewarding. Being able to go through a whole week baretoed, wear sunglasses and summerdresses and actually get a suntan and freckles…all that in the middle of winter is scarce.

The Red sea Been there, seen all that before, and yet, every time I put my mask on and my face into the water, it amazes me - the beauty, the colours, the perfect visibility. The water is always around 25 degrees C and when you swim virtually amidst all the colourful fish and corals, you feel like you’re in a big aquarium.

My first time diving

So I did it, the diving intro. To be honest, I thought I’d hate it. You know, did it just to prove I’ve done it…But guess what, I loved it. Before going in I had the butterflies of somewhat scary excitement. First there was the feeling of discomfort because of the pressure in the ears…well, it’s a bit of an understatment, as it felt like my head was gonna burst, but once I got the stabilizing working …oh my god, the feeling of weightlessness and the 3D sensation, the fish, the water, looking up and seeing sun high above through the water…so, when I got out the butterflies were even stronger but this time, of pure excitement. I guess it helped that I had the best instructor ever (not that I’ve met many:) because in this business, when you are offering people the chance of such an amazing “first-time-sensation”, you gotta be professional and calm and love the job yourself.

My first time climbing the Moses mountain

Now here’s something different. Imagine climbing a mountain in total darkness, road lit only by torches, at 2 o’clock at night, 3 hours, 6 kilometers, 1,5 km in height, and the further up you reach, the colder it gets. And once you get up there – cold, exhausted and start waiting for the sunrise…well, I believe you’re already able to actually SEE Moses:) But the sunrise was worth it, moreover, the “hero” feeling you get was worth it.


Saturday, December 03, 2005

Shukran, my friends, it was wonderful

Photo by: Liina

My holiday’s over and finally I have had my 13-hour long sleep to recover from “the holiday”:) It still amazes me how many experiences and emotions and events you can fit in one week, when in “normal life” the week could pass by, almost unnoticed. I had lots of fun, sun, sea, parties, good food, met some great new people and had at least 2 or 3 “did-it-for-the-first-time” experiences. (hmmm…I think I have to write a longer post about the “first times”, as it is an interesting topic.)